


Tarth

by lionheartedghost



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone lives happily ever after on Tarth, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Jaime Lannister Lives, Oathfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 20:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19116826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionheartedghost/pseuds/lionheartedghost
Summary: There had been a time when she had never imagined she would see her home again. The turrets of Evenfall Hall, stretching so high that as a child she had been sure she could reach into the clouds from them. The meadows and vales the same green she saw now in his eyes. The glistening sapphire seas, the same blue as her own eyes. It was only fitting that Tarth was a part of them both. It was his home too now, after all.Brienne, Jaime and Podrick go back to Tarth. Everyone is happy and alive.Prompt fill for abbyli.





	Tarth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abbyli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbyli/gifts).



> I saw an Oathfamily post by sansastarkii on Tumblr today and I loved it so much I had to write it myself.

There had been a time when she had never imagined she would see her home again. The turrets of Evenfall Hall, stretching so high that as a child she had been sure she could reach into the clouds from them. The meadows and vales the same green she saw now in his eyes. The glistening sapphire seas, the same blue as her own eyes. It was only fitting that Tarth was a part of them both. It was his home too now, after all.  
  
Gods knew how he’d survived King’s Landing. He’d found his way back to Winterfell weeks later, scars on his stomach and apologies on his tongue. She’d been distantly courteous at first, humiliation and quiet anger warring with every fibre of her very being, aching to forgive him, to hold him close and feel his lips against hers. It had been maybe a dozen apologies later (she’d lost count somewhere around the first ten) that he had told her he would leave, if that was what she wanted.  
  
She couldn’t bear to see him go. Not again.  
  
He would prove to her every day how sorry he was, he promised. He would never do anything to hurt her again, not for as long as he lived. He swore it by the old Gods and the new. And he meant it. She could see it on his face, hear it in his voice.  
  
“Stay with me,” she had said at long last, her hand finding his as they sat by the fire in her chambers. He had pressed a kiss to her forehead.  
  
“Always."  
  
She sat atop the rocks and watched the two figures sparring with each other further along the beach. The tide lapped lazily at the shore, not quite reaching them for the time being, but close enough that the two seemed to have made it their objective to force the other back into the water. She wondered how long it would be until one of them abandoned any pretence of an honourable fight and tripped the other with a carefully-placed foot. It would happen eventually. And it would no doubt be Jaime to throw Podrick off-balance, to laugh at him in the shallows, to already be halfway to the cliffs and safely out of reach before Podrick could retaliate.  
  
Bringing Podrick to Tarth with them had never been a question, in truth, but she had given him the option to decline the offer regardless. He was welcome to stay in the North, or return to the South, or perhaps even find a way back to the Westerlands he had grown up in. Wherever he wanted to go, he was under no obligation to stay by her side.  
  
He had stared at her as if she had asked him to hang himself from the rafters of Winterfell.  
  
“Do you want me to leave, Ser? Have I done something?”  
  
“Of course you haven’t,” she had rolled her eyes at him, but the fond smile on her lips had taken any exasperation from her voice. “I want you to know that you don’t have to follow wherever I go just because you feel duty-bound to. If you wish to stay in the North, I’m sure Lady Sansa would be more than happy to accommodate you.”  
  
“Lady Sansa is very gracious,” Podrick agreed, “but my loyalties aren’t here, Ser. They’re with you.”  
  
She’d glanced away from him, just long enough for the lump in her throat to disappear.  
  
“Besides,” he’d grinned at her, “the North has always been a little too cold for my liking.”  
  
So Podrick had come with them.  
  
She’d knighted him first.  
  
There was a splash and a crowing of delighted laughter as Jaime did just as she had expected him to. He didn’t race to the cliffs as she had predicted, though, but to her, a boyish grin on his face as he approached.  
  
“You’re a child,” she said as he hopped onto the rocks beside her.  
  
“I’m an old man.” He shrugged, tipping his head back to bask in the sinking sun. “It’s my prerogative.”  
  
“You cheated!” Podrick called as he made his way over to them. His hair was plastered to his face. He shook his head like a dog, droplets of sea water flying every which way.  
  
“I never said I wouldn’t cheat. It’s your fault for trusting me, Ser Podrick.”  
  
Podrick smiled despite himself, dropping down into the sand at their feet.  
  
“It’s my fault for going easy on you.”  
  
Brienne cackled.  
  
“Oh really?” Jaime raised an eyebrow dangerously.  
  
“You have an audience waiting to be entertained,” Brienne nodded to the space behind them. A group of children from the nearby villages always seemed to know when to find them here. They were gathered at the bottom of the cliff path, eyes wide, whispering to each other as they realised they’d been spotted.  
  
“Maybe my wife would like to help me appease her people.” He turned to her, his eyes crinkling teasingly.  
  
“Maybe your wife will,” she replied, “once you’ve proven you can best Ser Podrick without cheating.”  
  
Jaime pouted. She rolled her eyes at him.  
  
“Fine.” He tucked the wooden sword under his arm as he climbed down from the rocks again, reaching out his hand to pull Podrick to his feet. ‘We’ll see who’s going easy on who.”  
  
Podrick looked over his shoulder and stuck out his tongue at the children edging their way closer to them. They stuck their own out in return.  
  
“Good evening, Ser Brienne,” they chorused as they clustered around the rocks.  
  
“Good evening.” There had been a handful of odd looks thrown at her when Lord Selwyn had introduced his daughter to court as a knight, but the children of Tarth hadn’t blinked twice at her title.  
  
Brienne watched with an amused smile as a little girl pulled herself up onto the rocks beside her, her face set with fierce determination.  
  
“Hello,” Brienne greeted her.  
  
“Are you going to fight them too?” The little girl asked, swinging her legs absently. Brienne looked back across at Jaime and Podrick.  
  
“Maybe afterwards,” she mused.  
  
“You’d beat them both,” the little girl said. It wasn’t a question. “You’re tougher than all the boys.”  
  
“That’s very kind of you to say.”  
  
“I want to be a Ser too.” The little girl raised her chin proudly. “I’m going to be one when I’m big enough.”  
  
“Tarth will be safer for your protection, Ser,” Brienne replied solemnly. The little girl grinned at her for a moment, eyes shining, before turning her attention back to the fight before her.  
  
She watched Jaime and Podrick duel as the sun began to set, Evenfall casting shadows high above them. Her mind wandered. The girl who had been teased mercilessly by the boys at the ball; the woman who had seen the Kingslayer back to King’s Landing to fulfil an oath to Catelyn Stark; the knight who had fought alongside her squire and the man who had knighted her in that impossible battle against the dead; at no time could she ever have believed she would find happiness like this.  
  
The tide rolled in as she contemplated her boys. No, she never would have thought, all those years ago when Jaime Lannister had asked her to take Podrick as a favour, that she would one day return home with them both. That they would one day be as much her family as her own father. But here they were.  
  
She couldn’t imagine it any other way.


End file.
